Batrachotoxin, aka Love
by emmish
Summary: "Amongst other things, it causes heart arrhythmia, extrasystole, ventricular fibrillation. It also causes a huge release of acetylcholine. Activates the same receptors as nicotine. There is no known antidote." Sherlock struggles to come to terms with his new-found malady.
1. Chapter 1

**Just a silly little fluffy (and later, smexy) fic for starrysummernights, my partner in smut-related crime :P So go easy on me ; )**

 **Reviews make me super happy =^_^=**

Sherlock was studiously ignoring Mrs. Hudson as she chided him somewhere in the distance with her predictable, motherly mix of weary irritation and secret adoration.

He was currently searching for a tiny poison-dart frog that he had acquired and clearly underestimated in terms of its dexterity and decampment, and now, its ability to go into hiding in their cluttered living room.

Time was a pressuring factor, and he tried to appear aloof and un-panicked as he searched as calmly as he could for the deadly absconded amphibian. He had informed his landlady that the reason he was prying behind chairs and between ornaments was in order to locate his 'lost' cigarettes, and as yet she was unaware of the danger she was in as she faffed about in the kitchen.

Kudos to the damned creature for managing to camouflage itself somewhere despite being eye-wateringly bright orange and blue, a stark warning of its toxic nature. He would be less worried if he wasn't so painfully aware of the paper cut on Mrs. Hudson's finger, and the scalpel nick on his own palm, two devastatingly effective paths for the fast-acting poison to take.

"Mrs. Hudson, I told you to leave ages ago, why won't you," he drawled irritably over his dressing-gown clad shoulder, voice strained.

"I've only been here five minutes!"

"That's five minutes too long. Go away."

Sherlock inhaled sharply when he caught sight of the tiny animal on top of his skull, its wet black eyes unfocussed, yet somehow staring straight at him (with considerable smugness, Sherlock thought). Its brightly-hued throat pulsed repeatedly as he slowly reached for John's cereal bowl that had been commandeered for the job of retrieval. Upturning it, he frowned as his landlady obstinately kept talking at him. The frog hopped from the skull and now sat directly on the wooden mantel. It was rather sluggish, being used to a hotter climate.

"I bet you don't talk to John like that."

Sherlock successfully slammed down the heavy bowl over the deadly creature, glancing over his shoulder cautiously. Mrs. Hudson was looking at him, eyebrow arched at his odd behaviour and at the now-chipped bowl under Sherlock's large hands. He shrugged innocently.

Raising his hands slowly, he temporarily plonked a few antique hardbacks on top of the bowl for added security.

"Should I even bother to ask what you're doing, Sherlock?" Mrs. Hudson queried, plucking up scattered pages of sheet music from the living room floor with strong, aged hands.

"Would be a waste of mitochondria," Sherlock muttered, moving back from the mantelpiece and scowling as his landlady carried on tidying up.

"…As to your earlier statement," he continued, "I talk to John like that all the time. As well you should know; you're always skulking around up here. For all your constant presence, it astounds me that you still fail to notice that John and I are not in a sexual relationship."

"Not that you've ever denied it before now."

"You weren't irritating me before now."

"You're in a surprisingly bad mood today."

"You're an idiot." Sherlock yanked the sheet music from her hands and flounced over to the sofa, promptly throwing himself down, covering his face with the scribbled papers, and folding his arms resolutely. "By the way, don't move that bowl, there's a poison-dart frog underneath it," came his muffled instruction. " _'Thanks for saving my life, Sherlock_!'" he added in a sarcastic, simpering voice.

"I take it you haven't done anything about what happened yesterday, then," Mrs. Hudson asked, perching on the arm of the sumptuous leather sofa and talking gently to the petulant 6-foot-something baby sulking below her.

Sherlock sighed dramatically, promptly blowing his sheet music off of his face and all over the floor. Grumpily, tiredly, he rolled to face the back of the sofa, and let Mrs. Hudson pat his head supportively.

"…Not…as such, no." Another protracted, depressed sigh. "Ironic, is it not? John may well be a frog for all his effect on me."

Patiently, silently, Mrs. Hudson endured his ramblings and waited.

"Batrachotoxin," he announced irritably, as if his landlady had actually asked him to elaborate. "Found in deadly amounts in our Houdini-esque house guest," he said, waving an indolent hand towards the mantelpiece. "Amongst other things, causes heart arrhythmia, extrasystole, ventricular fibrillation. It also causes a huge release of acetylcholine. Activates the same receptors as nicotine. There is no known antidote," he added ominously.

"That's very sweet, Sherlock."

The detective let out a peculiar, muffed yowl of exasperation.

"Maybe if you told him what you just told me, he'd understand what you really meant."

"No, he'd tell me to stop bringing neurotoxic animals into the flat."

"It wouldn't be the first time, dear."

Sherlock rolled onto his back so the full force of his pout might be appreciated. He preened inwardly as Mrs. Hudson tutted and picked a few pieces of sawdust out of his glossy black hair. ( _Where on earth had that come from?)_

"Does John know _anything_ about…" Mrs. Hudson trailed off suggestively, dusting her hands of bits of sawdust.

"John doesn't know anything _full stop_ ," Sherlock spat. He rolled his pale eyes and had an upside-down glance out of the window. 12.52pm. Humidity 35%. Temperature 26 degrees. Wind speed 11mph, south-south-easterly. Pollen count moderate. Moon phase – first quarter.

And John would be nearing the end of his lunchbreak. The couple of times he had secretly bugged and tracked John at work suggested that he would probably be on his own in the break room now. Rushing through the words of his novel so that he could finish the chapter before his lunch was over. He hated leaving a book mid-chapter. He'd have to re-read the end of the last one nevertheless, because he always sped through a little too fast to fully retain the details.

Dear John.

He hissed frustratedly at this surprising mental sentiment, and groaned with all the melodrama of the hammy actor he was born to be, if the consulting detective thing didn't work out. At least, that what John had told him once.

"Why won't he just go away? _Erase himself_ somehow," Sherlock asked his landlady, fixing her with a piercing, challenging glare.

"You're talking like you hate him." She had things to do and places to be, but it wasn't often that Sherlock felt the need to vent himself of intense emotions like this, usually in the most cantankerous and dramatic way possible. He unfailingly went to a lot of effort to construct an 'accidental' situation whereby his landlady might be around for him to talk at. She knew he barely listened to what she actually said to him, but he seemed to need somebody else's sentences to bounce his own thoughts off of as he processed them audibly.

"I do hate him."

"You haven't even given him a chance yet. He has no idea you're having this little episode."

"This _little episode_ is the worst possible event to ever occur in the history of mankind. I've been usurped, and infiltrated and…tainted. It's ruined everything I stand for."

"Sherlock, you don't stand for anything except self-glorification."

"…Yes?"

Mrs. Hudson stood with a small tender smirk, smoothing down her deep-purple dress and bouffing her hair as she prepared to give her recalcitrant tenant a few parting words. Mr. Chatterjee's brother was looking after the sarnie shop today.

"You know as well as I do that lying around here sulking isn't going to change a single thing, except make you more harassed and angry. I know you like to think that you thrive on chaos, but that's only because you've got someone who shields you from it."

Sherlock stared at her as she serenely left him alone in a tousled heap on the sofa.

Downstairs, Mrs. Hudson grinned indulgently as she recalled the heart attack that she had nearly suffered yesterday morning when a fully-dressed Sherlock had flown recklessly down the stairs, wide-eyed, stricken, looking more colourless than usual, panting and shaking violently. Careening into her as she was heading out the front door, nearly knocking her to the pavement, he had seized her upper arms in a crushing grip and yelled "MRS. HUDSON!" in her face, practically deafening her. Passers-by had paused to stare, and got ready to dial 999 if need be.

Bewildered, she felt herself shaken roughly a few times, before she swatted Sherlock away and righted herself. Of all the times for John to actually be at his day job for once.

"What's happened now, Sherlock? You were folding laundry five minutes ago."

"Something _terrible's_ happened!"

She had the sudden instinct to grin, but the drained, hollow-eyed, and frankly deranged-looking man in front of her gave her true cause for concern. His dark curls corkscrewed wildly out from his head, sickly-dark spots of colour stood out on his formidable cheekbones.

"What?" she asked, her own pulse beginning to race in contagious panic. Sherlock stood momentously tall, and took as deep a breath as his speeding heart and electric terror would allow. Several pairs of eyes stared at him expectantly in the otherwise peaceful summer morning.

"I'VE JUST FALLEN IN LOVE WITH JOHN!"

The world, surprisingly, kept turning.

 **TBC! :D**


	2. Chapter 2

**Um…yeah, I don't even. Though I got the requested 'coming untouched' in there ;)**

 **I'm gonna put this down to too much caffeine and J-pop. XD**

* * *

John had always preferred altitude. Even as a kid, he had unfailingly picked the top bunk bed if the situation arose, and sometimes ended up in childish fisticuffs if said bunk was in dispute. He just felt intrinsically safer when he was higher up. It had taken him a good few months to stop distractedly fretting about his office at the surgery. His _ground floor_ office. He triple- checked the window locks when he packed up for the night and occasionally lost sleep over the idea of crackheads breaking in at 3am.

His association with Sherlock had, for all its virtues, done absolutely nothing to reassure him about the general goodness of humanity as a whole. He now found himself suspecting innocent people more often than he felt benevolent toward known wrongdoers, as he would have done in the past.

"' _Benefit of the doubt,'"_ Sherlock had once scoffed, near the beginning of their acquaintance. " _You're far too trusting, John. Far too…'nice.'"_

" _Yeah, well, somebody's got to balance_ you _out_ ," John had sullenly replied. " _Obviously killing a stranger in cold blood for you doesn't count."_

"… _Technically I never asked you to do that,"_ the detective had said thoughtfully.

" _Starting to wish I hadn't done it?"_

There had been a lengthy, pressing silence. _"…No. I might have been…I couldn't be sure that I was actually, you know…"_

"' _Right?'"_

There had been a nondescript huff, and John had been very gratified to see a telling, rosy bloom and a discomfited expression on his friends' face.

Now, he flicked through a hefty stapled booklet of dull-looking print-outs ( _what a waste of paper_ ) regarding their practice's rules and regulations in accordance with current government standards, with no doubt at least three miniscule additions to differentiate it from the last quarterly one. It was nearly 1.30pm, and he had waived going home early in favour of using a couple of hours to catch up on his paperwork, timesheets and referrals, which he sorely needed to do.

Truth be told, most of the 'paperwork' was mostly in the form of garishly-coloured charts and huge documents with confusing titles on his computer. It was times like this that he wished he was a self-proclaimed ' _Techno Fairy. I mean Wizard,'_ like Sherlock (Sherlock had been drunk and 'juggling' a single USB at the time).

White-hot, sizzling sun was drenching the room, and John tilted his rickety monitor away from the most piercing rays, tutting irritably. Taking a swig from the scuffed, lukewarm bottle of water on his desk, he tried to focus on his computer screen once and for all and stop getting distracted by soft, mini-tornadoes of heated dust motes.

When, a few seconds later, a sharp rap sounded on his window, all his suppressed paranoid fantasies about doped-up intruders sprung to the fore and he seized his paperweight instinctually. He caught the sight of familiar, stunned green-grey eyes and exhaled, replacing the heavy ornament back on his desk.

He undid the latch quickly, but Sherlock roughly shoved the window open with a bang before he could make any further move.

"What are you still doing here?" Sherlock challenged him sharply. "You said you'd be out early because you have to pick up a cake or something. I was waiting," he added in a quieter tone.

"Cake?" John racked his brains for a second. "Sherlock, that was my sister's birthday. I said that _seven weeks_ ago."

"Then you're a bit late for the festivities, aren't you? Never mind cake now. We need to talk seriously."

"…Like this?" John winced, glancing out at the woefully inadequate car park outside his window, overflowing with badly-parked vehicles. He didn't think he could pull off an urban Rapunzel scene.

"Fine. Move," Sherlock said brusquely, shooing John until he could vault through the window and land elegantly on John's office floor.

"You're insane," John muttered fondly, eyeing the bedraggled detective. At least he was sort-of dressed for the weather – white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, along with his usual dress trousers. The veins of his arms and hands criss-crossed his sun-warmed white skin and pulsed visibly with every heartbeat. John took his eyes away from them to be surprised by his flatmate's cold, accusatory glare. "What? What have I done now?!"

"I'm breaking up with you."

John's mouth dropped open and he gaped, his face crinkling with utter confusion.

"…Excuse me?"

"It's not me, it's you. I think we should just be strangers. It's not working out. It was mediocre while it lasted. How many ways am I supposed to say it?"

"What, you mean like…a couple breaking up?"

"Add 'you're far too dense for me to tolerate' to the list."

"We're not a couple!"

"That's more like it. Glad you took it so well."

"Sherlock, we were never a couple!" John shouted and stared, truly blown away by his flatmate's bizarre behaviour. There was quirky, and then there was actually unhinged.

"Well, no, if you insist on being pedantic. I thought we could skip all that…stuff," he waved his hands airily, "and just get to the end. Which is now."

John gave him a searching, unsettling look, and promptly took his pulse by grabbing his thin wrist and refusing to let go when Sherlock squirmed. He stood slightly on his toes to look into Sherlock's aqua eyes, and placed the back of his other hand against the detective's forehead to take a rough temperature. It seemed from his admittedly-cursory examination that the only obvious substance Sherlock was on was his own peculiar brand of loopiness.

He let go of Sherlock's slim, white wrist and watched as his flatmate unconsciously rubbed a thumb across the sensitive skin. He figured the safest way to go about this was to play along with whatever hair-brained theory was behind Sherlock's belief that any of this made sense.

"So…you think we should break up. We should cease to be a…a romantic, sexual couple?" John confirmed tentatively, making sure he understood that part, at least. Trying to ignore his own blushes at vocalising those words in front of his presumed-asexual friend, did nothing to halt the birth of further self-conscious reddening on his throat and sternum, which he could sense by the uncomfortable heat it was stoking. He couldn't _stand_ that particular reaction.

"Yes!" Sherlock answered happily, seemingly relieved. "Yes. And it can be just like before and I won't have lost my mind."

"Don't speak too soon," John murmured darkly. "Look, seriously Sherlock…let's pretend for one second that you're a genius and I'm an idiot," - at this Sherlock pulled a face - "and explain it to me as you would a child. Please." He accentuated his ending plea with a cautious grin and hopeful eyes.

Sherlock pouted slightly, and physically recoiled a little in the face of his doctor's tempting entreaty, before grudgingly giving in with a small sigh and a tired eye-roll.

"I fell in love with you yesterday and I didn't want to."

Much later on, it would occur to John that such a pivotal announcement should have really merited more than the tiny, breathless "Oh," that he managed to respond with, and which he followed up with dumbfounded silence.

Sherlock cocked his head at his doctor, gauging his reaction, and continued blandly. "I know. It really was most inconvenient. I went to a vault in my Mind Palace looking for details on European dignitaries and tripped up on your striped jumper. I nearly knocked myself out on the Swedish over-60's drawer. Mrs. Hudson scolded me for my sullen inaction, so I decided to come here and break up with you."

"Y…Um…if it's so troublesome to have my clothes lying around in your Mind Palace, you could always just clean up a bit," John quipped, trying for humour. It sounded as flat and awkward as it felt.

"Don't talk rubbish John, that would mean wiping you out completely. You may be the worst thing that's ever happened to me, but you're still the best thing too."

The doctor huffed a laugh that was bit tight and damp, and he knuckled his indigo eyes before clearing his throat.

"Right. Blimey. This is _not_ how I saw my day going when I woke up this morning."

"No-one's prescient John. Not even me."

"…So you want to break up with me because you can't think properly."

"Yes."

"Because you're in love with me."

"Yes."

"And you want to forgo _all_ the fun stuff in between actually becoming a couple and breaking up?" The suggestiveness was subtle yet deafening.

"Y-es." The hesitation was absolutely microscopic but John picked it up nevertheless.

"Well, if I'm gonna be heartlessly dumped by someone I wasn't even seeing, I'm going to demand a goodbye kiss."

"…Maybe not a good idea?" There was a mini panic flickering in Sherlock's aqua eyes.

"I'm damn well getting my own way over this, you bloody lunatic. You're an insufferable ex-boyfriend and I'm going to make this as uncomfortable for you as I feasibly can."

John eyed Sherlock challengingly as he said this, but still didn't actually make a move, in case Sherlock was legitimately repelled by the idea.

The detective appeared to short-circuit slightly, eyes unfocussing and lips parting minutely. It tended to happen when he was overwhelmed by conflicting data and his own corresponding reactions.

John felt a little sorry for him, and touched his hand lightly to try and regain his attention. "Breaking up with someone doesn't necessarily stop you from loving them."

A few blinks, and Sherlock was back with him, looking determined. "I'm willing to give it a try."

"Well, that's your prerogative. Go on then."

The little furrow between Sherlock's brows that was just begging to be prodded appeared, and his cupid's-bow lips tightened in puzzlement. "Go on what?"

"Give me a goodbye kiss."

"Um…"

"Okay, then give me one good reason why not."

"…Because I might like it," Sherlock admitted. He averted his stubborn gaze out of the window, wincing at the bright afternoon sunlight and prickling heat. The intense radiance was picking out gingery highlights in his ruffled, glossy black curls, and the faintest imperfections in his white skin.

"I should bloody well hope so. After all, we were a couple for such a long time. For all of about minus two seconds, in fact."

A hefty sigh from the detective.

"…Fine. Perhaps I was being…a little unreasonable." Sherlock cast his pale eyes briefly, inscrutably, into John's before steeling himself and leaning down for a quick peck on the lips.

John flinched in pleasure at the alien sensation, but retained enough wherewithal to ready himself when the reactive synchrony of Sherlock's muscles told John that he was pulling back. He tested his flatmate with an insistent extra smooch and found no resistance at all, though there was a split second of indecision on the detective's part. Sherlock's hands remained by his sides and his body was tense, but he was slowly relaxing, the longer that John suckled indulgently on his closed, sun-warmed lips and hummed encouraging little sounds.

Slightly irked that he could coax no further movement or any sound whatsoever from the detective, who was barely reciprocating, John broke the rather one-sided kiss. He moved back only far enough to be able to focus on Sherlock's blush-stained face, his embarrassment painted like exquisite red ink on virgin porcelain.

"Sorry," John offered sheepishly, hoping he hadn't pushed too far, though unable to extinguish the secret smug thrill that maybe he had.

"No! No, it's…fine," Sherlock replied instantly with a half-second of eye contact, before looking down and clearing his throat. The bloom on his high cheekbones made his crystalline aqua eyes look even more startling, practically radioactive.

"Good."

"Can you…" Sherlock started uncertainly. "…Can you do that a bit more?"

"Are you going to kiss me back this time?"

"I'm a bit out of my depth here, John," Sherlock reminded him snappishly, looking adorably affronted.

"Sorry, sorry. Me too. First time with a bloke, and everything," he shrugged, chuckling softly.

"…It was okay for you, though?"

" _Very_ okay, Sherlock."

"Really?" Sherlock seemed genuinely surprised.

"You have the most kissable mouth on the planet."

"O-oh," came the feeble, wide-eyed response.

"Yeah, 'oh,'" John grinned reassuringly, before cupping a hand behind Sherlock's head and pulling him down gently, but firmly, into a kiss. His other hand settled on Sherlock's hip, and the resultant muffled "Mph!" of revelation from the taller man was glorious.

 _Jesus Christ, Sherlock was in_ LOVE _with him. Fuck._

John wasn't about to start questioning what his flatmate might actually classify as 'love,' not when the man himself was making sweet, breathy little noises and beginning to grope blindly at his backside with startlingly strong hands. He'd rather not know what Sherlock perceived as love, if it was any different to his own interpretation – caring about another human more than oneself. He'd felt like that about Sherlock from the very start.

John was barely touching Sherlock, twiddling a few fingers in the baby-soft hair at the base of his skull, and slowly thumbing at his prominent hipbone. Nevertheless, the man was a livewire, goose-bumped yet hot under John's fingerprints, desperately vocal yet barely raising his voice above sighs and tiny groans. There was a definite, full-body jolt from the detective when John penetrated his mouth and started shamelessly plundering his tongue.

The vicious grip that Sherlock's large hands had on John's backside tightened into actual pain, but he didn't dare cease or even slow his eager invasion of Sherlock's blood-hot, delightfully wet and responsive mouth. He was ignited even further when the detective started pumping his hips optimistically against John's stomach, sucking sloppily on John's tongue, making deliriously arousing noises. He was _very_ hard.

John panted excitedly at the incredible response, biting his own lip in wonderment when Sherlock pulled back with a hiss, before burying his face in John's neck and shuddering. John marvelled at the taller man's intense reactions to such minimal stimulus – he himself was only barely starting to physically respond, still soft for the most part. He wondered dizzily at Sherlock suddenly scrabbling at his wrist, before he realised that the detective wanted to hold his hand. Grabbing the hot, fumbling hand protectively, resulted in a deep-toned groan of relief.

John moaned in shock and winced as Sherlock's considerable full body weight was suddenly on him, the taller man shivering and huffing sticky whispers into his neck repeatedly. A few violent spasms that nearly jerked John to the floor and a strangled, high-pitched whine were needed before it finally dawned on John that his flatmate was having an orgasm. And it was hands-down the most erotic thing he had ever experienced.

Sherlock stabbed his hard, clothed cock painfully into John's stomach a few times, his fingernails digging viciously deep into John's palm and lower back respectively. The hot, wet exhales that exploded against John's throat were soon chilled by the heaving gasps that were fuelling Sherlock's climax.

John soothed him constantly with a drunken dialogue of sheer awe and cooing reassurance, supporting Sherlock's heavy weight stoically and smooching random bits of overheated damp skin, stiff collar, soft curls, anything he could reach.

"…God…I've never…wow…Sherlock, so beautiful… _Jesus_ …"

After a few trembling, steaming seconds, Sherlock bravely pushed himself back upright, self-consciously wiping the back of a hand across his mouth as he swayed just a little on his feet. His entire face was a delicious wet, rosy pink, and he looked absolutely exhausted. He met his doctor's gaze, which somehow made John look like he didn't know whether to cuddle him, worship him, or fuck him through the floor.

Sherlock licked his cupid's-bow lips and blew out a long exhale that made the curls on his forehead briefly dance up into the now sex-scented warm air. He eyed the clinical wipes and tissues on John's desk. All things considered, there were worse places to be soaked in lukewarm bodily fluids than a doctor's surgery.

"…Maybe…on reflection…we should give our relationship a second chance."

John grinned. "That's the first sensible thing you've said all day."

* * *

 **I try and set the scene for filth so it's not just shoved in there (as it were) and end up with one and a half chapters of total randomness XD Ah well, TBC imminently :D**


	3. Chapter 3

John stared openly at the flustered pink-faced detective in front of him, his exponentially-increasing discomfort. "Wow. I - God-"

"Yes, John, the android is capable of having an orgasm. All too easily, it would seem." Sherlock scowled at him, before seizing a handful of wipes and tissues from the ever-full dispensers on John's neat desk.

"It was –"

"Turn away, please."

"Hm? Oh, right, yeah." John dazedly listened to his flatmate unzip and silently clean himself as best as he could. "…Alright now?"

"You may turn back, if that's what you're asking," came the snapped reply.

Disgustedly, Sherlock tossed his used tissues in the bin. "That didn't work out at all. I was supposed to dump you and I ended up ejaculating."

John burst out with a brief, dirty giggle. "Yeah. It was something all right."

"It was _appalling_." The taller man ran frustrated hands through his already-wild curls, dazzling John was a wave of golden glints amongst tumultuous black twists. "I'm going to delete it. This clearly needs…further thought."

"But you just…said…our relationship?" John hoped his disappointment-stunted sentences would compute with the angsty detective.

"Regrettable effect of the endorphin high. Rashly-spoken words, I apologise. Luckily the delirious rush subsides just as quickly. Though now I'm feeling rather despondent," Sherlock said thoughtfully.

John's disappointment was compounded by the fact that his ever-observant, ever-oblivious flatmate hadn't noticed it. "You're a prick," he said flatly.

"I'm sure it isn't the first time your precious office has been sullied like that."

"Did you even notice that I enjoyed that, Sherlock? Do you even care?" John's voice rose, both in pitch and volume.

The detective stared at him, perplexed, for a few seconds, but John interrupted him before he could dig himself any deeper.

"You know what, forget it. Delete it. I'll try and do the same. Go and work off your bloody endorphins. Or you know what, live dangerously. Sleep it off instead."

"I rather think I live dangerously enough already."

John let out a sharp, bitter laugh. "You really are an insufferable wanker. Just get out, go on."

"…You're displeased," Sherlock noted finally, and his body language expressed a few tiny recoils and backtracks, both mental and physical, that usually helped to bear the brunt of John's occasional flared temper. "Did you…should I try and bring you to climax?" He had very little experience in such things, and whilst he was admittedly a fast learner, he could by no means guarantee John an orgasm, particularly in an environment and mood so far removed from the typical, optimum 'bedroom' scenario.

"No! Just fuck off!" John yelled, grabbing Sherlock and forcibly turning him and pushing him towards the door. Unused to being manhandled, and certainly not happy about it, Sherlock bit the bullet and stayed silent as he stumbled from the room with as much grace as he could muster. As he received shocked, questioning stares from various staff and clients in the packed hallway, he straightened himself and tried to remember to leave the way he had come in, next time.

* * *

The muggy afternoon was spent by the detective in his bedroom, in a grumpy, indulgent hate-wank session. He felt annoyingly horny, and vaguely miserable, and it was a thoroughly unpleasant mood to be in. The attempt to delete The Kiss, the source of his current contemplations, had so far failed. He lay in only a T-shirt on top of his bed, the window open and rogue afternoon breezes birthing pinpricks of cold on his already visibly-aroused white skin.

Stroking himself with the barest amount of effort necessary, he orgasmed quietly, and repeatedly, for an hour or so, cursing John every time he climaxed, shivering with effort, and then cursing him again afterwards as he sulked in sticky lassitude.

By the time John came back to the flat just after 3 (not intending to stay long by the sounds of his brisk movements), Sherlock was feeling distinctly fed up - tired and drained and headachy. He fished out the barely-hidden jumper from under his pillow, and laid it over his face. It had initially been lifted from John for non-sentimental reasons, but it had soon proved invaluable as a joint painkiller/comfort blanket/Mind Palace fortification. He was only a little ashamed to admit that the palace moat was not bordered with emergency sandbags, but folded cable knit jumpers.

He listened to John pause in the front room and irritably turn the TV off. Sometimes Sherlock liked to have it on in the background, just for the white noise in the flat. When John had noticed the habit, he had said something confusing about lonely puppies, and moaned about the electricity bill, but hadn't told him to stop doing it.

Muffled footsteps, and a tentative knock on his door.

"Sherlock, you awake?"

The detective succumbed to a massive yawn as he thought about answering, and then nearly choked on it when the door was gently opened, John's innocent face peeking around it.

" _Shit_! Sorry…sorry," the doctor muttered, red-faced, as he slammed the door closed again, after getting an eyeful of Sherlock sprawled, naked from the waist down, unclean from sweat and sparse ejaculate, with a jumper over his face.

"You've been busy then," John quipped, in an adorably awkward attempt to inject some humour into the situation, before scurrying away from Sherlock's little den of iniquity.

Sherlock wasn't really wired to suffer nudity-related embarrassment, so he just sat up and took stock of himself, after tiredly folding the oatmeal jumper and re-housing it under his pillows. If nothing else, he had discovered some fairly interesting facts regarding repeated onanism and corresponding semen output.

 _Wonder what John's results would be._

 _Wonder what they would taste like._

Sherlock grimaced and shooed away the silky, sexless voice back into the fleshy padded room that it been confined to, yet had once again emerged from. Soundproofing the room had proved fruitless. The number of malfunctions in his Mind Palace construction were proving unacceptable, and the sooner he managed to de-sexualise his head, the better. _Far_ too much space in there was currently cluttered with dildos, deep-throating, and dating etiquette. Someone had graffiti-d a large, neon-green phallus onto the door of his anatomy lab, for goodness sake.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, the detective was showered and dressed and in the living room, fiddling with the dark curls of his fringe and idly contemplating a haircut. John's energy had not dissipated, and he still hadn't left the flat for whatever errand he seemed set on when he had returned from work. The doctor was currently faffing in the cluttered kitchen and occasionally taking rushed mouthfuls of the too-hot tea he had just made.

"What are you waiting for?" Sherlock drawled, pulling indolently at his fringe and watching the curls spring back into place.

"Actually, I was just psyching myself up to it," John replied, appearing in the doorway.

"You're a brilliant army doctor, infinitely brave, what could you possibly need 'psyching up' for?"

John, stunned briefly into a happy silence, preened at the lazy praise.

"…I was going to ask if you wanted to go out. For some fresh air."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Do you have any idea of the level of air pollutants in central London?"

"It can't be any less fresh than staying in here, in a flat stinking of come," John retorted with a fiendish grin.

There was a long moment of pure, sweet silence.

"…Touché."

John chuckled, and went back to his tea, calling enigmatically over his shoulder. "Did you manage to delete it?"

"If you're talking about the earlier incident…no. It's very…resistant."

"Maybe deep down, you just don't want to. Maybe you should stop being so stubborn. Maybe you should get out of your Mind Palace a bit more. No wonder you're so pale, you're always indoors."

"Maybe you should shut up."

It was the best response Sherlock had at the moment. John was unruffled by it.

"So…wanna go out with me?"

A long pause.

"…Yeah, alright."

* * *

 **Yeah, I don't even :P**

 **This might end up a long one XD And Starry hasn't even started reading it yet XDD**


	4. Chapter 4

Stepping out of the flat onto a bright, sun-baked pavement, John glanced back at a faint noise of discomfort as Sherlock pulled the door closed behind him, frowning down at his hand. As the detective straightened and turned to face him, his expression was schooled into exactly the sort of blank calm that never failed to tell John that Sherlock was hurt.

Not bothering to say anything, anticipating a stubborn acknowledgement of perfect health, John grabbed Sherlock's surprisingly cool hand, and immediately caught sight of the angry-looking, but uninfected scalpel cut on his palm.

"Woodlice," Sherlock shrugged, as if that explained everything. He affected a bored expression and glared at the piercing hot sun, his ice-pale eyes narrowing and watering slightly.

"Would have thought woodlice were a bit pedestrian for you," John commented lightly, glancing up at his petulant flatmate. "Surely you were pulling them apart as a five-year-old in the garden. Come to think of it, most five-year-olds probably were."

"It was a specimen of Bathynomus giganteus, a giant isopod. Over a foot long. To all intents and purposes though, it's just a really big underwater woodlouse," Sherlock said, managing a small, grudging smile, his cold high cheekbones warming with crinkled glee.

John chuckled, much more open with his amusement. Then, to Sherlock's bafflement, he pressed his lips to the soft wound in a brief kiss.

"…John? Why are you trying to infect my cut?" The detective asked slowly, a distinct grimace on his face.

"It's called 'kissing it better,' Sherlock."

There was an uncomfortably-long, strained pause. "…So…you routinely dribble on your patients' injuries?" Sherlock asked carefully, his ice-green eyes flickering between John's in mistrust and confusion. _Maybe I should double-check the veracity of John's medical qualifications._

A breathless laugh, a flash of fondness in indigo eyes. "I'm not claiming my saliva is some kind of panacea. It's just something people do. A soothing, comforting thing."

"…I hate to tell you this, but I'm not feeling soothed."

"Then I won't do it again. Come on, you," John announced, still holding Sherlock's injured hand gently, tugging him away from the flat.

He was halted immediately by the detective's stubborn refusal to move. "I want a muffin," Sherlock declared quietly. Before John could respond, Sherlock nodded through the window of Speedy's. "That young woman on the till. It's her first day, she's feeling pressured. Distract her, ask her questions about what products are gluten-free. I'll grab something for you as well."

"Better idea," John told him shortly. "Get your fat wallet out of your back pocket and pay for it like a normal person. Kleptomania isn't cute, Sherlock."

"I have to stay in practise, John. I don't want to get rusty. Why is it that you have no problem with me breaking into buildings or passing myself off as a policeman, but you get pissy when I steal a couple of muffins? They're not exactly valuable."

"No, they're not," John agreed. "Which is why you're going to take some shiny coinage from your pocket and offer it to the nice lady in exchange for one."

Sherlock knuckled a hot bead of sweat from his pale forehead with his free hand. "Such a radical, John."

"I'm a baked goods vigilante. Protecting coffee shops all over London from the likes of you. Come on," he repeated firmly, clasping Sherlock's hand and leading him through Speedy's door.

* * *

"See? Doesn't it taste better when it's honest?"

Sherlock was chewing rather gracelessly on an over-large chunk of muffin, and he quirked an eyebrow at his doctor, who sat beside him with a charming, reprimanding smirk. John waited patiently while the frowning detective rushed to swallow, so that he could express his indignation.

John's grin widened as he continued to speak to his flatmate. "Since you're incapacitated, I'm going to talk at you for a bit, is that okay?"

Sherlock scowled massively and strangled out a noise of deep vexation, before finally downing his mouthful of muffin and hastening to retort, spraying chocolate crumbs all over his own summer-damp shirt.

"Don't force me to ruin my plans for you John. I want to try and use as much of you as I can before I actually give in and have to kill you." The detective pouted, and then pouted harder when John playfully bumped him with his shoulder.

"…'Use as much of me as you can?'" The suggestiveness slipped like syrup from John's thin lips, the emanating implications so strong that Sherlock could practically taste the sex-scented sweetness in the back of his own throat.

The detective tried to regain his composure as subtly and elegantly as he could. He stoically stared out across the grey Thames, as he sat tall on an age-soft bench near Tower Bridge. They were in a curious little nook right beside the main thoroughfare, that was shrouded with thick, dark foliage, and whose only real attraction was a lofty Victorian lamppost. People buzzed past them with non-stop, chaotic regularity, but they had remained unmolested. They had long since found that they seemed to attract far less attention when they weren't actively trying to avoid it.

Sherlock being denuded of his signature Belstaff by the sticky weather, helped enormously.

"Take your mind out of the gutter, John. I already told you that you're dumped. Don't push your luck," He mumbled, blushing and frowning at the rest of his muffin. He was hungry, but the moment his mouth was full again, John was bound to follow through with his promise to talk at him. He had endured quite enough with the fatherly moral guidance lecture that had punctuated the Tube journey. _Come to think of it…_

"What are we doing here?" Sherlock asked suddenly, glancing up at the bustling Bridge as though he hadn't really registered its hulking yet classical presence before. The furrow between his eyebrows deepened incredulously as it occurred to him that the muted blue accents of the Bridge matched that of the shirt that John was wearing at the moment, which was crisp and new and not quite yet imbued with the synaesthesic scent of warm tea and cheerful middle-of-the-range musk.

John was watching a moist chocolate chip detach itself from the muffin and land in Sherlock's lap. Without preamble, he gently brushed it away from the detective's crotch. He earned a wonderful, peculiar little noise of surprise for his actions. He tried not to appear as indecently thrilled as he was at touching the warm, firm, heat-damp fabric between Sherlock's legs.

"Don't you remember? You said, 'John, I think I'd like to take the river air in your scintillating company.'"

Before Sherlock could spit vitriol at him like a six foot cobra, John unexpectedly sneezed, and instead of rounding on him, the detective reactively uttered, "Bless you."

"Ta."

"…What? No, don't say that."

John raised a quizzical brow at his newly-perturbed flatmate. "Say what? 'Ta?'"

"You shouldn't thank someone when they say 'bless you.' It…" Sherlock's mouth shut with a sharp click, as if he had abruptly had second thoughts about elaborating. "…It's not good."

"Why not? It's polite." John was intrigued now.

"…It's murder."

"…Right, now I'm _really_ lost."

" _That_ makes a change," Sherlock murmured sarcastically.

"That's a bit harsh. I thought you were in love with me."

Sherlock opened his mouth, but found he didn't quite have anything to say to that. Huffily re-adjusting himself on the bench, he glared at the trudging, weary-hyper hordes of tourists filing past, before speaking up again quietly. "If you say 'thank you,' it kills a fairy."

John tried and failed to hold back a snort of amusement. "Says who?"

"…My grandmother told me that when I was very young. Against all reason and logic, it stuck with me. Hateful," he muttered.

"I think that's quite cute. I'm sorry about the fairy."

John seemed genuinely remorseful, giving Sherlock's knee a quick thumb-rub. There was a forgiving, peaceful silence between them, barely tainted by the constant churn of boats on the grey Thames, the jarring beeps of a dozen smartphones and the occasional childish shriek.

"That's okay. You can bring it back to life, you know," Sherlock informed him, grey-green eyes bright with humour.

"Oh yeah?"

"You're supposed to clap twice."

John treated him to a glorious, clownish grin, and proceeded to resurrect the unseen fairy. "There we go. All is right with the world."

"…Not quite." Sherlock took a fortifying breath, staring stoically ahead, and took John's pleasantly-warm, smaller hand in his own. He let the breath out in a shaky exhale, gnawing on the inside of his bottom lip.

"So…not dumped, then?"

"Don't misunderstand, you _were_ dumped," the detective said flatly.

"What's this then?" John asked, lifting their joined hands and cheekily squeezing in demonstration.

"I'm taking you back."

* * *

 **Speedy's muffins are very nice…be sure to grab one if you're ever on a Sherlock pilgrimage XD (and make sure you pay for it! ;) ) And the fairy thing is real :3 :D**

 _~ "The secret ingredient…is crime." – Super Hans, on the superior taste of stolen confectionery ~_


	5. Chapter 5

_I'm taking you back._

"Are you certain? Because I'm getting so many mixed messages from you I feel like bloody autocorrect," John muttered without malice. He ran a firm thumb over the soft blue veins that pulsed warmly on the back of Sherlock's pale hand. The late-afternoon grimy sun was low in a grey summer sky, and induced frowns and watery eyes with its bright heat.

"Perhaps you would like to discuss this somewhere more private? You're clearly a few steps behind in the logical process."

"There is nothing logical about this, Sherlock. I would say that you're overwhelmed by your heart ruling your head for once, but you don't ha-"

He managed to stop himself just in time, instantly admonishing himself for what he had been about to say. "-…But we both know that's not the organ you usually think with."

"I'm not sure it's the one _you_ think with either, John," Sherlock said, his indifferent tone and blank stare revealing nothing about whether John's almost-insult had penetrated his stubborn psyche.

"Is that so?"

"You revel in your debauchery."

"Deb - what?" John couldn't help but gasp, laughing. "Seriously?"

"You heard me."

"It's not healthy to think of a normal sex drive as 'debauched.'"

"There's nothing healthy about your obsession with fornication either."

"I haven't had sex in nearly a year!"

"Cry me a river. I haven't had sex ever."

"But I-" John had started speaking before his brain could catch up with this unsurprising revelation. "Oh…are you sure?" He asked awkwardly, before wincing at the idiocy of the question.

Sherlock treated him to a small, amused smirk. "I'm fairly sure. It may astound you to know that I do know what sex entails, and I'm pretty certain I haven't had it. Not even accidentally."

"How do you accidentally have sex," John mumbled, shaking his head in embarrassment.

When he saw Sherlock prepared to eagerly enlighten him, he held up one hand. "Actually no, I don't want to know."

"Shame."

"You must have gotten…tons of offers, though?"

"Yes, but not from the people I was actually interested in."

"…And now you're interested in me?"

"In _love_ with you, yes."

"…How do you know?" John asked, without malice.

Sherlock opened his mouth, and then promptly closed it, looking briefly surprised by his own lack of verbosity on the matter. When he did speak a few seconds later, he was frowning, and his free hand was gesticulating sharply as he struggled to elucidate.

"You've wrecked my life, but against all logic and reason, I can't bear to be rid of you."

"…Sorry about that," John laughed awkwardly, his gaze cautious and his posture tense.

Sherlock's face crumpled in dissatisfaction and he continued speedily, trying to express himself. "That…sounded bad, but it's not. Not entirely. Not _exactly_. It infuriates me that I can't properly describe it to you, because in actuality it's catastrophically simple. It's like…" There was a slight pause. "…When you told me that water turns into clouds."

John huffed with fond laughter. That had been one of his earliest lessons in 'How Not To Be Spectacularly Ignorant.'

"And even though I hated having tripe like that in my hard drive, it makes a good metaphor at this moment. Because, for example, the sea, and the clouds, are the same. They look and feel and sound completely different, but they're made of the same material."

"Well, you know, in very _basic_ terms-"

"And that's like me, now," Sherlock carried on, glibly ignoring his doctor. "I'm the same, and so is everything else, but you've given it more energy, and now everything looks and feels and sounds better."

John's grip on Sherlock's heat-damp hand tightened minutely. "Oh…wow, Sherlock…"

"What?" Sherlock immediately asked, brow furrowed sweetly. "Don't laugh at me."

"I'm…really not. That was…amazing," John shrugged simply, grinning at his detective with the same awe and affection he offered at crime scene denouements, except now, in a very different venue.

"Oh. Well then. Good." Sherlock cleared his throat and sat up straighter, but he cast a sidelong and still semi-suspicious eye at the smaller man nevertheless.

"Thankyou."

"If you want to thank me properly, a few distinct suggestions are forming in my mind."

"Dare I ask?"

"It involves penises."

John huffed with laughter, squeezing his detective's hand. "You're a menace."

"I must admit, I'm slightly lost now. What's supposed to happen?" He winced as a particularly searing spear of hot sunlight hit his pale eyes. John was briefly dazzled by the luminous green fire in them, and transfixed by the imperfect little brown dot in Sherlock's iris that he was secretly enamoured with.

"We could snog?"

"But…it's only right to do that if you love me as well. Isn't it?"

John nodded, his expression cool and resigned. "Yes, it is."

Sherlock pulled a face, looking depressed and sulky all at once. "You should let go of my hand as well then. Leading me on and toying with my…vulnerabilities. I didn't have you down for a cruel- _mm_ -"

Their warm lips met, and then temporarily parted with a moist click, as John grinned helplessly and Sherlock gasped in surprise. The detective suddenly aspirated and then spluttered wetly on it with a deep, wheezy cough and watering eyes.

John politely rubbed his back and waited for him to get his breath back, smiling clownishly to himself.

"Ugh, God," Sherlock muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Sorry."

"Finished choking?"

"I think so."

"We can snog properly now?"

"…I hope so."

"C'mere, then."

Sherlock flushed darker than the sticky heat of the afternoon would explain, and subconsciously wiped his lips again, before leaning forward and pushing his mouth eagerly to his doctor's.


	6. Chapter 6

"I really can't wait to take you home," John admitted quietly, grinning.

He rhythmically, unconsciously rubbed at Sherlock's fingers, nestled warmly in his own on the back seat of the taxi. The detective allowed it with his typical blank-faced stoicism, but he occasionally threw a curious glance downwards, silently admiring the logistics of their entwined hands.

"You really are being frightfully predictable," he replied, not as quietly as John had murmured. Turning to the open window, he closed his pale eyes briefly at the heady rush of cool summery air, blustering in his face and tasting of London.

"You predicted this?"

"…An amount of time was necessarily spent on the possibility of intercourse at some point in the future."

"You daydreamed about us shagging."

Sherlock tutted. "Ever since you turned up my Mind Palace has been slowly infiltrated with all sorts of sexual innuendo and coital rubbish. It's more of a Mind Phallus now."

"…Is it _just_ , you know…'phalluses?'" John laughed awkwardly.

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, is it a sort of, 'no girls allowed' type thing?"

It took the detective a few visible seconds to process the metaphor, before he nodded and sighed at the tiny waste of his own brainpower in doing so.

"In as much as I have contemplated sex, there always seems to be penises involved. As opposed to…anything else."

"Are you gay?"

"John, why are you repeating _everything_ I say in idiot-speak? Your 'readers' aren't here now."

"Because you shroud everything in cryptic waffling to stop people actually figuring out what you're saying. Trying to maintain your mystery and all that."

"…I'm mysterious," Sherlock pouted.

"Stubbornly impenetrable, is perhaps more like it."

"Impenetrable? You may discover otherwise later on."

"Sherlock, behave."

"In bed." Sherlock elaborated flatly.

"Yes! I gathered that, Jesus," John grinned clownishly, shaking his head.

"But I'd like to penetrate you, too."

"Fine, whatever, just stop talking so loudly."

"'Fine?' Really?...Excellent."

"We'll sort all this out later. _Not_ in earshot."

"We'll really do it?"

"If you want. If you're ready."

"How ready would _you_ be after forty years of waiting?"

"…Point taken."

"I hope it will be. Taken _very_ thoroughly."

"…Shut up, Sherlock," John muttered fondly, squeezing his hand.

* * *

John was nattering away, hand in hand with the detective as they traipsed down Baker Street, gazes burnt by the lowering dusk sun. He was fishing for his door keys when an insistent jerk on his wrist indicated Sherlock's sudden discontent.

"What's that?" the detective demanded, frowning hard and pointing accusingly at the creature on their doorstep.

"That's a cat."

" _Don't_ be thick John, I know what it is. What's it doing there?"

"Licking its arse, by the look of it," John shrugged coolly.

Sherlock tutted extravagantly.

"Well, bring it inside," the detective ordered, accurately darting his hand into John's pocket and plucking the keys out, opening their door.

"What? No, it's got a collar. It belongs to someone."

"That collar is years old and digging into its neck. It's practically ingrown. I don't care if it belongs to someone. That 'someone' is clearly negligent. Bring it inside."

Without another word, Sherlock pushed open the door and swept upstairs.

Momentarily stunned, John watched his partner disappear into the perpetual gloom of their flat, and then watched as the cat (now that he looked at it properly, it _was_ pretty bedraggled) trotted happily after him, speeding upstairs as if it knew the place by heart.

A minute later, John entered the front room to see Sherlock crouched over the cat, calmly and easily nicking away at the rough fabric of the collar with a scalpel until it fell away, showing an oozy, sore necklace of skin.

"Clean it up John, that's your sort of thing," Sherlock instructed, striding out of the room. When he didn't return immediately, the doctor glanced down dumbly at the feline that was pawing at its aggravated flesh.

"…You heard the man," he told it, shrugging, and going for his medical bag.

* * *

John was finishing up a while later on the sofa, dabbing at the squirming, clean and trimmed cat, when Sherlock strolled back in. He held one of John's flat storage boxes, once-neatly packed, now empty. He dumped it on the floor in the living room and then made a trip to the kitchen, banging a few cupboards before returning, hefting a heavy, crumpled, half-full bag of sand.

"Why do we have sand in the kitchen?" John asked, packing away his kit efficiently, already anticipating and preparing himself for the sarcastic response.

"From that experiment with the hermit crabs."

"Of course." He watched the detective upend the bag, smoothing a layer into his storage box, creating a makeshift litter tray.

"'Yes, Sherlock. Of course you can borrow my box, chuck out all my stuff and dump grit in it,'" he said, deadpan.

"I thought you'd say that. The greater good, John, the greater good."

The doctor rubbed a hand across his eyes, squeezing away the pounding hints of a headache, and sighing.

"How many times are you going to do this?"

Sherlock glanced up at him, dusting his hands, and looking sweetly confused. "This is a good thing."

"Yes, but…yes. It's fine. You're just the last person in the world I would have down as an animal vigilante."

He briefly thought back to previous instances of various animals rescued, injured, from crime scenes, orphaned in murder victim's houses and in one case, sequestered from a man who had been smuggling small diamonds injected under the skin of bearded dragons. They had been fostered in 221B before being suitably moved on to new owners.

"You say that every time, you can't still be surprised. I appreciate animals. When they act aggressively, when they kill, it's for self-sufficiency. It's innately coded in their DNA. They don't understand malice or jealousy or greed. Not in the way people do. And they certainly don't ask or deserve to be mistreated."

"Is it a boy or girl? Our new friend."

"No idea. Does it matter?"

"I…suppose not."

Sherlock wandered out to the kitchen once more, and presently came back with two mismatched dishes, one with water, and one with bits of shredded chicken from last night's dinner.

"We'll let it eat and recover. If it wants to stay, it can."

"You like cats then?"

"They remind me of me."

"That's a 'yes,' then."

"Definitely."

"We can train it to help in cases."

"To do what?"

"Alarm system. Sneaking into tight spots. Carrying secret cameras in its collar. Ingratiating yourself at the vets if the vet turns out to be a serial killer."

"…You've been watching too many films."

"Probably. So…" John stretched, and let the cat amble eagerly over to the food, starting to scoff it down. "…The sex is off, then?"

"Most certainly not," Sherlock frowned. The taller man approached his flatmate on the sofa and sat down heavily, spreading his long legs out before him. There was a short pause. "Is the presence of pussy really that off-putting to you?"

John glanced at Sherlock's innocent grin, and they both collapsed into gusty giggles. "Good one."

"Thanks."

"You're actually never going to ask me if anything that happens in _our_ flat is okay with me, are you?"

"I know you well enough. I know you don't mind."

"Still, the formality would be nice. You know, just once in a while."

"Formalities are a waste of muscle contractions."

John was thoughtful for a second. "Like orgasms?"

Sherlock flushed abruptly, flicking grey-green eyes to his doctor. "…Depends who they're with, I suppose."

"Right, so. Your good deed for the day is done. Karma dictates that I give you a blowjob now," John said calmly.

The detective sat up on the sofa, coughing suddenly on a sharp intake of breath. He squirmed a bit as he pulled his legs up underneath himself and turned to face his flatmate. "What do I have to do to get your penis inside me?"

"I could ask the same question."

"Oh…oh," Sherlock said, nodding even as his pale eyes and rose-stained cheekbones betrayed his surprise. "Should we…shall I do that, then?"

"Would you mind?"

"Not at all."

"Away from the cat?"

"Of course."

"Alright, then. Let's go."

Sherlock watched John stand up and extend his hand to him, feeling shell-shocked and dizzy with false confidence. It took him a second to respond, grabbing his doctor's smaller hand a little too hard and letting himself be pulled up and led away up creaky stairs, through summer-hot gloom.


	7. Chapter 7

"So I'm going to penetrate you?" Sherlock asked quietly.

They lay chastely, side by side, on John's bed, breathing peacefully of the grimy, sun-burned air that pushed weakly through a wide-open window.

"If that's what you want."

"I think so. I haven't done it before."

"You said."

"…But I've thought about it sometimes."

"Well, that's something."

"Your totem in my Mind Palace is a penis," the detective announced randomly.

"Totem?"

"A big, veiny one."

"I – what do you mean, 'totem?'"

"You exist everywhere inside my Mind Palace. Sometimes I can see where you've been by…a signature. A little scribble that denotes where you've been trespassing during my dreams."

"So in your subconscious, I'm just a big penis."

"I – yes. It's not _intentional_ ," Sherlock insisted huffily.

"Of course not."

"You're so much more than a big penis."

"Thankyou, Sherl. And you're so much more than a massive brain."

He turned his head and huffed with laughter at the disgruntled grimace on the detective's face at being seen as anything but a brain.

"That's a _good_ thing, you know. I couldn't make love to a brain."

"That image is…unpleasant," Sherlock's breath hissed through his teeth with soft amusement. "But oddly pervasive. So…I'm a brain with a reproductive system."

"You don't really need me to tell you how much you mean to me, do you? And if you're fishing for compliments, we'll be here all day."

"We'll be here all day anyway, having sex."

John rolled onto his side, to fully face the detective, whose ice-pale eyes were distant, flickering slightly as if reading something invisible in front of him. He was about to try and instigate some intimacy, when the taller man beside him frowned suddenly and barked an exclamation.

" _Hang_ on, John…you said you loved me?" Sherlock abruptly propped himself up on his elbow, looming over the doctor, an impressive scowl on his face.

Feeling only a little threatened, John nodded amiably. "Yup."

"But you don't. You're only saying that so I'll have sex with you. Because you haven't had sex in a year."

"Wait a _bloody_ minute," John flared, sitting up quickly and meeting Sherlock's eyes with a challenging fire. He was briefly gratified to see Sherlock recoil back a little, looking cautious. "Who says I don't love you? And how on _earth_ could you think that?"

"Well, you…" Sherlock appeared to hesitate, before relenting and spewing out a nervous stream of quick deductions, his face growing redder and more discomfited by the second. "You've exclusively dated women and repeatedly denied homosexual leanings. Today I expressed my interest in you – specifically, that I had fallen in love with you – it then transpired that you, a hot-blooded male, had gone without sex for what you consider a prolonged and unacceptable period of time. You also learnt that I am a virgin. The opportunity must have been too good for you to pass up. Because suddenly, here we are in bed. You'll get your rocks off and also be doing me a favour by 'popping my cherry' and substantiating my feelings for you."

Having unburdened himself of his insecurities, and feeling oddly guilty about it, Sherlock finally met his doctor's gaze, and was stunned to see the dark blue eyes awash with disbelief and anguish. Slowly, though, softly, those eyes calmed and quietened their pained storm.

"…You really believe all that? Or is that just your biggest fear right now?"

"…I don't want it to be true. I don't _think_ it is…but…it might be? You're a man who goes after what he wants, and usually gets it. And unless I've been unforgivably blind, you haven't tried anything with me, ever. Therefore, you don't want me?" The question at the end of the sentence was quietly, painfully tangible.

"Look…I can see why…it might look like that. But, you have to admit that you define everything you see through logic rather than…emotion. It might seem to you that the most efficient thing to do would have been to inform you the moment I realised I cared for you, but real life doesn't work like that. I've been relegated for a long time to just being your best friend. Which is wonderful, if a bit trying at times," John smirked. "…Just randomly telling you that I'd fallen for you, _hard_ , was never going to work. Besides, I assumed you weren't interested. It always came across that your only attitude toward sex and relationships was basically disdain, if not actual disgust. Plus, you said you only just fell in love with me yesterday."

Sherlock was quiet, his expression deeply pensive, prompting the appearance of the proddable little dent between his brows. "That's when it became crystal clear to me, yes. It's been brewing for a long while though, I suspect. Like an abscess."

"Wow. Lovely," John deadpanned.

"A good abscess."

"Of course."

There was a slightly awkward, but peaceable silence. John cleared his throat as they both lay back on the bed again, gazing at the off-white ceiling.

"If I'd stayed celibate, you would have known something was up."

"I would probably have deduced impotence or something similar. Certainly not that you were pining for me," Sherlock laughed gently. "And so you decided to sleep with half of London instead."

"Hardly. And I'm not going to apologise for having a sex drive."

"I'm not asking you to. It's just…" Sherlock tailed off, chewing on the inside of his mouth stubbornly.

"Just what?" John prompted gently.

"It would have been nice if I was your first."

"…You are, in a way. I've never kissed a man before." John met his glance briefly and continued. "I've, you know, used…hands a couple of times. But kissing seemed a bit too…"

"Intimate?"

"Yeah. That was more taboo than wanking another guy off."

"I…see." Sherlock nodded uncertainly.

"You don't really, do you?" John asked kindly.

"…No, I don't," Sherlock admitted. "People kiss all the time. They don't go around touching each other's genitals. Nobody gives a 'good morning' handjob."

"What an idea, though," John chuckled gently. "Listen - I'm…going to kiss you in a second. And it's going to get heated. If you want me to stop at any time, say so. And if you don't want me to start at all, that's fine too."

"It's really me who should be warning you, John."

"About what?" The doctor asked, extending a warm hand to tentatively cradle the mound of Sherlock's high cheekbone.

"I don't do things by halves. I have an addictive personality. If you give yourself to me, I won't let you go unless you beg me to. And even then, I may not."

John huffed a little, fond laugh, and prodded a vicarious kiss using his thumb against the fine lines of Sherlock's eye wrinkles. "You might not believe this, but I've…it's been…well, after everything…I've had no idea what to say to you to keep you close to me. One of us always seems to say too much, too little, or the wrong thing, and then we…one of us leaves."

"…I would never leave you without knowing I'd be able to return to you."

The doctor grinned, and pushed a soft, questioning kiss against Sherlock's pliant lips. The detective gave him a tentative smooch back, shivering a little at the voluptuous, wet sound it created.

A deafening shift of heavy, tentative limbs and crisp bedclothes, and Sherlock was soon gently pinioned beneath his doctor, returning his polite kisses with a cautious tongue and tiny pecks.

After a few wonderful minutes of gentle, questing smooching, John pulled back, slightly breathless, giggling soundlessly as Sherlock frowned and tried to follow him with a kiss-bitten mouth.

"Is all of this…okay?"

The detective's face flinched a little in contemplation. "I can't stop thinking about other people."

He immediately opened his mouth to try and voice an as-yet-unconstructed apology, when he saw the grimace on John's features.

"Sherlock," John interrupted, "that's…that's really not what people want to hear in bed."

"I…I don't mean other people like _that_. I mean, the other people… _all_ the other people you've…'been with.' I don't like it."

The smaller man nodded in understanding, and settled tentatively upon his partner's body, which took his weight easily and without complaint.

"Sherlock, you can't be my first. But you can be my last, if you want."

The brunette's cat-like eyes flashed wider in a shock of aquamarine. A faint, airless pause followed.

"I…I like the sound of that."


End file.
